the girl’s rich imagination had her deluded enough. She liked watercolors, and painted a picture of the dog the Army boyfriend gave her for Christmas as a puppy. Then one day the dog disappeared and she framed the painting and hung it in the living room as an homage. The girl liked her dog well enough but she loved him when he was gone. At least that was the impression she gave anyone who’d ask about the picture, Whose dog was that? (Or, What’s that?) Palma would say, It’s Snowball. It doesn’t look like Snowball, the person would say. Not long after that Palma quit painting.
It was hard to believe, but when Palma painted Snowball, Pepito was six years old. His first grade teacher was in love with him. His “big cousin” had taught him to read at four, and the teacher thought he was a prodigy. Palma wanted Abuela to put him in a good school or at least try to get him in a gifted class. Abuela la Evangélica spent a lot of time in her church. She didn’t have patience for such nonsense. Anyway, Pepito was not a genius except at seduction. He fooled his teachers but he never fooled his prima. He could get passed on to the next grade if the teacher was a female. And one year, a male teacher. Usually male teachers and he did not get along. It was a mental macho standoff to the end of the school year. Palma was long gone out of Abuela’s home when all that was going on. The old woman kept her up on things.
Another chance encounter came to mind. It was the summer before Pepito went to prison. She was coming up the steps to Abuela’s and he was rushing out. Hey! He said, and gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Hey, she said. He made her nervous. Palma already sensed danger in him, the danger that perhaps came with a sociopath in the making. His body was solid. If she were a porn star she would have picked him to co-star with her without hesitation. That one with the shaved chest and the thick indio hair. Take off your clothes. Let’s see what you got. Oh yeah. He’ll do. Palma Piedras wasn’t a porn star, and this was long before porn, considered the epitome of seedy, became a household word, before poles were set up in bedrooms to spark up Mulch marriages and Mulch fiancées were allowing strippers to give them lap dances at the request of future husbands to turn them on with girl-on-girl power.
She was going on thirty, single, and overall not feeling that eye-catching on her grandmother’s front porch that day, except as the proud bearer of a Bachelor’s degree. She was going to show it to Abuela that day. (Abuela was not impressed, given the fact that Palma had no job, and what good was education, much less education for a woman, if not to help her provide for her family.)
Hey, she said again to Pepito and held out the envelope mailed to her with the degree. I just finished college. A Bachelor’s in Fine Arts. Even as she said it she knew it didn’t mean jack shit to him. He didn’t give a damn about finishing high school but he flashed his Pepsodent smile, Oh yeah? Congratulations, Prima, he said, and took off. She watched him cross the street to his vehicle. It was new. How had he managed to get a brand new Land Rover? He turned and saw her staring. Palma’s face went red. He threw his gym bag in the back seat and waved before getting into his ride. The man with secrets. He knew she had been watching his ass.
Pepito’s prima was outside now, teeming with Mulch as the streets were throughout Chicago’s summers, wondering if he had ever watched her ass. There wasn’t much of one to watch. She was still the thin-bone woman much like the one he saw on the porch that day over a decade earlier. Now Palma had the finest of crow’s feet. Her boobs were not as well positioned as they had been then. She’d had a hysterectomy the year before. Instead of standing on the corner where they agreed to meet, she went across the street. Palma wanted the first-glimpse advantage.
She didn’t even see Pepito until his arms were around her and his mouth on her own. She was holding a Starbucks cup to keep her skinny bod steady, and it nearly went flying when he grabbed hold of her. Palma felt nothing from the kiss that was meant to sweep her off her feet and part with all her sense and money, she was sure. You knew from a kiss and Palma suspected he had the same reaction but more than anything, he acted nervous about seeing her.
They walked along the avenue holding hands. Actually, he gripped hers, like Palma might run off, which in fact did cross her mind. She was embarrassed to be walking with a thug. He could have been in an orange jumpsuit wearing his prison numbers, she felt it was that obvious. The strut. The posturing. Want a piece of this? each step spoke. And she, in her plaid, synthetic Bermudas from Sam’s and puny arms swinging in the early summer air, like a pet on a leash. Once upon a time she wanted to be an artist. Short of that, a fashion designer, except that it was all about connections. Either way, she never would have pictured herself walking along the Magnificent Mile of Michigan Avenue when she was past forty in sweatshop clothes with a not-so-much-too-cool but too-old-for-school former gangbanger.
A street musician playing sax (two bucks in his open case on the sidewalk to give passersby a clue) hit the first notes of “Let’s Get It On” when they sat on a bench nearby. Are you kidding me? Palma gestured to the guy. He stopped, nodded, dried off the mouthpiece, and switched to Aretha. “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.” Pepito and she each wanted the other and each didn’t want to be wanted. That day Pepito was taking her down. She was taking him down, too. He looked out of breath. It’s too much, he said. What? She asked. Seeing you, again. Being here. Pepito vulnerable? That could work for me, Palma thought. (Women stuck on stupid had those thoughts all the time, didn’t they? Maybe he’ll see how much he needs me, they told themselves.)
Pepito got hold of himself, stood up, and took her hand. Dead woman walking, Palma thought, as she saw they were headed in the direction of her hotel. Hey, how ‘bout we get something to eat? She asked. He wasn’t hungry, he said, although by the size of the man he could obviously pack it in. Their inevitable getting together, when it finally came down to it, frightened the living scampi out of her. They stopped at a place with tables outside. All he ordered was coffee. Sign of a cheap man. And not so bright, since she was treating. She ordered an egg and toast. Palma hated eggs. (Who came up with the idea of eating an animal’s preborn?)
You could always order a bloody mary or a mimosa at nine a.m. and not sound off the AA alarm, but right out of the gate she asked for a double shot of tequila. The egg was a ruse. Pepito ate up everything on the plate, so no waste there. Palma swigged down the tequila like it was her last wish. She didn’t want Pepito to know she was seeing dos of him so she put her Tom Ford shades back on. Let’s go to your hotel, he said again. After Palma paid the bill they got up, and he gave his older cousin a French kiss. She bit his bottom lip hard. He ran an index finger over it. Okay, he said. I can bite, too. Her Day-of-the-Dead skeleton body let him take her hand and lead Palma rattling in the direction of the hotel. She wanted banter. Smooches. A prayer. They marched in silence.
In the elevator he predictably came toward her. The mirrors and unpardonable lighting in the elevator . . . Color me freaked out, she thought, seeing her two dots for eyes in the reflection as they hit fourteen. (Really thirteen but hotels skipped that number for the sake of the superstitious.) She took his baseball-mitt hand, and led him to room 1413.
Palma left her room more or less made up and crime safe by putting away her jewelry just in case she didn’t come back alone. (What did she know about Pepito anymore?) They ended up not fucking. He came out of the bathroom fully dressed and her, now in leopard-print Victoria’s Secret crap.
I know somebody who owes me forty grand, he said. (But of course, he did.) Maybe you can contact him for me. (Wait for it . . . ) I’ll give you half. He laughed to himself a little, Okay, not half. But I’ll give you ten. Ten what? Ten knocks upside her head? Get the fuck out of here, all of which Palma did not say, but thought. She was getting the Bermudas back on. Forget it. I’ll find him, he said, obviously aware of his error in judgment. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you, anyway, prima, he said, meaning a share out of the fantasy $40K. Yeah, don’t do me no favors, she said, and pointed with her chin to the door. He could hardly get a word out when Palma let it close in his face.
2
Jim-Bo stayed in Abuela’s house after she died. He had lived there his whole life. He brought a skank to live with him and make his tortillas. Abuela had made him fresh flour tortillas every morning of his life. His skanks could hardly keep themselves clean so Abuela’s house must have become a percolating petri dish. He always got into the mowing and trimming